A Study of Attar's Tazkereh al-Awliya and Mathnawis based on Genet's Hypertext Theory

Tazkereh al-Awliya, which is the most important work of Attar's prose and one of the greatest texts of mystical prose, has great potential for intertextual comparisons with other mystical works as well as Attar’s Masnavis. This descriptive-comparative study aims to show the textual relationship of 51 joint anecdotes of Tazkereh-al-Awliya and Attar's Masnavis with the hypertext approach, one of the five pillars of Gérard Genette’s theory of transtextuality. The results of the research show a broad relationship between Tazkereh Al-Awliya and Attar’s Masnavis. Both types of hypertext (i.e. homogeneity and tragedy) are observed in these works. This connection is more than the type of tragedy, and among Attar's Masnavis, Al-Tair, Elahinameh, Misibatnameh, and Asrarnameh, respectively, have the highest percentage of common anecdotes with Tazkereh al-Awliya.